Introduction

Chile's life support system was in a strangle hold, from financial credit to vital supplies. The well to do were eating rather than investing their seed corn with encouragement from the outside. Nationalization had been a recognition of the economic exploitation of the outstanding national resource. A decade of neglect and investment that would have a catastrophic effect in the longer term. Selective mining, inadequate maintenance, the failure to reshape the development of the resource, had led to disastrous outcomes. And as we get further in the book, especially chapter 20, Yeine Great echine Go! will come up with some way to withstand the onslaught on its dicidents at the national level.